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Identification of Phishing E-mails Often Hard

Distinguishing phishing e-mails from real e-mails can be tough for online users. Rik Ferguson, Senior Security Advisor at Trend Micro, states that it isn't hard for spammers to craft fraudulent e-mails, as reported by Taylor Vinters on June 14, 2010.

The Advisor also adds that modern day phishing e-mails are often put together with high professionalism.

According to him, it is quite easy to create a fake e-mail that seems to have come from Nationwide, Barclays Bank, Lloyds TSB or any other. However, for someone who is un-informed or technically un-savvy, it might be extremely difficult to spot the spoofed nature of such e-mails.

An e-mail, which is poorly formatted, will arouse doubt, but a lot of them are so professionally crafted that people mayn't find them that simple to spot.

The Advisor adds that lack of sufficient awareness among Internet users caused them to become infected by merely clicking on a web-link or accessing a website, without even downloading anything.

Here the security experts cautioned them (Internet users) of risks associated with following web-links appearing in spam mails as online miscreants could craft e-mails seemingly like those from banks or similar organizations.

The remarks given by Ferguson are followed by certain statistics that Symantec published in early June 2010. The statistics examined the possible difficulties on account of spam during the current Soccer World Cup. Accordingly, the total volume of spam mails related to FIFA rose 27% as scammers sought to cash in on the worldwide interest in the football game. The messages sounded extremely persuasive and hard to identify as phishing e-mails.

Therefore, business and home PC users have been recommended that they should improve their procedures for data security since fraudsters get more-and-more advanced in their techniques.

Furthermore, the security specialists suggest end-users for making themselves aware about such scams and avoid clicking on unfamiliar and un-trusted web-links or opening uninvited attachments even if their senders claim as someone genuine. In addition, users should always remember to download every relevant security patch from the Internet and make sure that their systems are kept up-to-date on a regular basis.